Christmas and kidney stones

We had a great Christmas. Some things I want to remember...

- Tate yelling "Christmas!" every time he saw any lights.

- Marlie giggling every time she talked about how she couldn't wait for Christmas morning.

- Carefully choosing presents for everyone. I love shopping for gifts. And all of them arriving on our doorstep. Amazon.com is a mom's best friend.

- Marlie exclaiming, "Mom, it's almost Jesus' birthday!" When Target first hung up their Christmas decorations.

- Breakfast together at The Mud House and picking out our tree afterward.

- Tate exclaiming, "Oh goodness!" when he unwrapped his "digger" trucks.

- Marlie and Tate "workin" and helping put up the tree and decorate. Tate with no pants and Marlie with one sock.

- Hays baby bouncing happily in his bouncy seat off to the side.

- Watching Home Alone with Marlie for the first time.

This year on New Year's Eve I had kidney stone surgery to take care of some stones that they found when I was still pregnant. This is not a chapter of my life that I would like to repeat. It was bad. Real bad. It was big though, so I feel the need to record it here. But I will make it as brief as possible...

They told me I had one big stone and several small ones. They told me the big one would not pass on its own so they needed to go in and get it. We met our deductible for 2012 so we begged them to do it before the year was up! New Year's Eve morning they knocked me out. I woke up to Shane telling me that the surgery went fine except...there were no stones in there.

Huh???

Yep, they were gone. All that surgery for nothing. Super. And I had to have a stent in for a week. It basically feels like a straw is inside you poking your bladder and kidney because well, it is. Family and friends to the rescue again. Grandmas watched kids. Wonderful people made meals. I didn't leave the house for a week. Shane picked up my slack and kept me sane. Baby Hays got sick and Shane had to take him to the ER the night of my surgery. We all survived, but it was no fun.

I got my stent taken out. They told me it wouldn't be painful...it was awful. They told me I shouldn't have any pain after that. Two hours later I was kneeling on the floor screaming in to a pillow so that Marlie wouldn't be scarred for life. Doctor said it was kidney spasms. I had three of them. The longest lasted 2 hours, the shortest 30 minutes. I wanted to die it hurt so bad. And remember, all that pain and there were no stones anyway. Shane did his best to comfort me. He prayed for me and I screamed and cried and prayed that the pain would stop. And finally it did.

I'm finally starting to feel normal again. Here's hoping that kidney stones are just a horrible thing my body does when I'm pregnant.

THE END